The Lunacy Fringe

Quinn decided that our birthday would now be called "Magical Twin Day." It didn't matter that we had school and a family who probably wanted to spend time with us; we had to spend it together. He was even going to throw a Halloween/Magical Twin Day party for us at his house.

I woke in the morning to the sound of someone in my bedroom. I pinched my eyes shut, burrowed deeper into my sea of pillows, and hoped it was just the dog.

"Shh," someone said. Someone else's snickered. I grabbed a pillow to hold over my head.

"Ruby? Psst,—Ruby?" I peeked out from under the pillow and squinted at the group assembled in my tiny bedroom. The sun wasn't even up yet, but my dad, Crystal, Billie, Quinn, and even Steve were hovering by the door with Jade sleeping in his arms.

"Happy Birthday!" they all said in unison.

"You guys scared the crap out of me."

"Happy Birthday, Kid. You're eighteen now. A whole grown-up," my dad said, sticking his hand on the top of my head to ruffle my hair.

"So is Quinn," I reminded them.

"Yeah, but we already woke him up. He was born first. It seemed only fair." That's when I realized Quinn was still in his pajamas. And looked as sleepy and irritated as I felt.

I sat up as everyone shuffled around, trying to figure out who had gifts and whether or not I should open them right there in bed or save them for later. Then my dad decided he should make breakfast, but Crystal reminded him that we had to go to school, and Quinn and I weren't even ready. So they just deposited the gifts right there on my bed and made me deal with them first thing in the morning when I didn't even know how to be human, let alone excited.

But I really did like everything.

When I finished, I jumped out of bed to find the gift I got for Quinn. I had a shirt made that had his band's name on it. Even though they hadn't actually done much of anything since they got done recording in the summer, they were still definitely a band. And he really liked the shirt. He immediately replaced the one he was wearing with it. Then he decided he was going to school in pajama pants because he was too lazy to go back home to find something suitable to wear.

The really odd thing is that no one even seemed to notice Quinn was wearing pajamas to school.

After school, Quinn took me to a kid's party place with an arcade and a ball pit with tunnels. We bought matching Frankenstein masks before we got there, and thankfully it was mostly deserted. This was apparently Quinn's way of celebrating Magical Twin Day. I tried to suggest we find a bar and order our first legal drinks together, but he said he couldn't buy just one drink, and we had the whole night to get wasted legally. But since we weren't children anymore, there was apparently no better way to celebrate than by going to a children's party arcade and tossing one's sister into a ball pit.

Which he did. And war broke out.

Balls were flying everywhere. And the only two kids in the entire arcade ran off as far away from us as they could. Quinn was much better than me, so after getting pelted on the side of the head a few times, I took refuge in a tunnel. He climbed into the other side, and I was fully prepared to launch an attack at his face until I noticed he wasn't holding anything. He flopped over onto his stomach because he was otherwise too big to fit into the tunnels. Then he let out a sigh.

"Do you think you love him?" he asked. He was lying face-first on his arms, and his voice echoed off the tunnel walls.

"Who?" I asked. His head shot up.

"Your boyfriend." Oh—right.

"I like him."

"But do you love him?"

"Love is a strong word."

"So it's been like what? Two months?"

"I guess so. But that doesn't mean anything."

"How long was it with Felix?"

"I don't want to talk about him."

"I'm just asking. Billie said you thought you could love him."

"Billie was wrong," I stated.

"But you were only really with him for like three weeks tops."

"Why are we having this conversation?"

"I'm just trying to figure out what it is you see in this Jake guy. He's a total square."

"He—do you want the truth or the sugar-coated version?"

"I'd like one heaping serving of bran flake truth, please?" I sighed and rolled my eyes.

"When I'm with him," I started, "I don't think about Felix." He leaned on his elbow to watch me. The static in the tunnel made his long dark hair stick up in every direction.

"So you still think about him when Jake isn't around?" he asked. I shrugged.

"Sometimes."

"But you don't love him."

"Jake? No. But maybe someday."

"When you can manage to stop thinking about Felix at all."

"Something like that." He picked at the edge of a tunnel and digested this information. Then he perked up again.

"Hey, let's get out of here. I'm starving, and Billie will kill us if we're late to our own party," he finally said. I was grateful for the change in subject. Yes, I'd been with Jake for two months. But it hadn't changed much.

"Yeah, alright."

We climbed out of the ball pit and went to exchange our tickets. We decided to combine them for a hot pretzel and cheese, which Quinn had consumed most of before we even made it to the car. Then we headed to his house to start the last part of Magical Twin Day. The party. In which Felix AND Jake would both be attending.